Wichita eagle., 1887-10-09
LOVE In MIDAIR.

have Just read in the columns of a news
paper a drama of passion. He killed her and
then put an end to his own life, consequently
he loved her What matters he and she?
Their love alone interests me; not because 1t
moves or astonishes me, not because it
touches my heart or sets me to musing, but
because it brings remembrance OF my own
young days, q strange recollection OF q hunt
ing trip, where Love appeared to me in mid
air, just as crosses appeared in the skies to
the first Christians
I came into the world with all the instincts
and feelings of the primitive man, tempered,
however, by the reason and emotions Of the
civilized one. l am passionately fond Of
hunting, still the sight of wounded animal,
of blood Oh the feathers of bird or ON my
hands, so thrills my heart that at times
grow faint.
That year, at the end of autumn, cold
weather set in all at once was waited on
by my cousin, Karl de Rauville, who invited
me to go with him at daybreak to shoot
ducks in the marshes.
NY jolly cousin, a red haired, thick set and
bearded country gentleman, 40 years old, an
amiable semi brute with lively spirits, and
richly endowed with that French wit which
makes even mediocrity agreeable, dwelt in q
sort of farm castle situated in a wide valley
through which flowed river. The hillsides
to the right and left were covered with lordly
forests in which remained magnificent trees,
and where Were to be found the rarest game
birds known in that part Of France
Eagles were sometimes killed there; and
birds of passage, which are seldom seen In
our too densely peopled country, would in
variably halt in the venerable branches of
the trees, as if they knew or recognized this
little bit of forest of olden times, which still
remained there, to furnish them with a safe
resting place during their short stay of q
night.
In the valley were great pastures, irrigated
by little bitches and divided off by hedges;
then further away, the river, no longer con-
fined to its channel, spread out into an ex-
tensive swamp This morass, the finest hunt
ing ground ever saw, was my cousins great
est concern and he kept it like warren. In
the thick, waving, rustling rushes that COW
cred its surface had been cut narrow pas
sages, through which would noiselessly float
fiat bottomed boats propelled by long poles.
As these went along. grazing the reeds on
either side, the fish would be seen darling
through the grass or moorhens diving out of
SIGHT IN the twlnkllng or all eye.
am pasSionately fond of the water. I
love the sea, notwithstanding it is so vast and
50 restless, the rivers so beautiful in their on
ward flow as they pass out of sight, and
especially the morasses where palpitates the
the entirely unknown life of the aquatic ami
mails. The morass is a complete world on the
earth, an entirely different world-one which
has its own species of life its sedentary in
habitants, its passing travellers, its voices, its
noises and especially its mysteries Nothing
is more perplexing, disturbing, and even at
times more terrifying than marsh. Why is
1t that species of fright always seems to
hover over those low, water covered plains9
Why such uncertain noises among the reeds,
such strange will-o-the-wisps, the deep 81
1ence that prevails on calm nights. or those
fantastical fogs which sweep over the rushes
like the shrouds of dead women, or still that
imperceptibla ripping so light, SO soft and at
times more terrifying than the cannon Of
man or the thunder of God? All these things
cause morasses TO resemble those countries
that we see in our dreams or those formidable
regions which seem to conceal q dangerous
secret never to be fathomed
No. Something else is evolved from it. A
graver, deeper mystery floats through the
alton itself. For was it not in muddy, stag
nant water, in the heavily saturated grounds
lying exposed to the suns heat that the first
germ of life moved and wriggleda
arrived at my Cousins i'm the evening. 1t
was cold enough to split the rocks.
During dinner, which was set in a great
call, whose sideboards, walls and ceilings
were covered with stuffed birds perched on
branches or with extended WINGS hawks, her
rons, owls, goatsuckers, tiercels, vultures, fall
cons, my cousin himself resembling some
strange creature from a cold latitude, dressed
as he was in sealskin garments, was detailing
to me all the arrangements he had made for
that very night.
We were TO leave at $50, SO as to reach at
4:3O the spot selected for our stand. A hut
built of blocks Of ice had been constructed
there to shield us little against the terrible
wind that blows just before daybreak, wind
freigh.ed with an icy GOODNESS which tears the
flesh as If with saw, cuts as if with a sword
blade, stings like nettles and burns like fire.
My cousin was rubbing his hands together.
81 have never seen such freeze" said he; at
was already - dogs below zero at O this
evening"
l went TO bed right after dinner, and fell
asleep In the glare of the great blaze flaming
up my chimney. was called up at O'Clock.
put on sheepskin overcoat, and found nv
cousin Karl clad in the fur OF a bear. After
swallowing two cups of coffee apiece, and as
many glasses OF champagne, we started of,
followed by gamekeeper and our dogs |
Plongeon and Pierrot
had barely put my foot out of doors when
felt the cold penetrating my very bones.
1t was one of those nights when the earth |
seems dead with cold. The frozen air stings
so much that it feels unyielding. palpable.
not a breath of air moves it.. it nips, goes |
through, dries up and kills trees, plants, in |
sects, and even little birds, which tumble |
from the branches 10 the lard ground and |
become as hard as it themselves, through the |
effect of the cold. The moon, in her last |
quarter, leaning all to one side and pale, |
seems fainting in space, and so weak that |
she can no longer go on, but remains there
seized by the cold, paralyzed by the rigor of |
the sky surrounding her. She sheds q dry,
sad light over the world, that dying, wan |
glimmer she gives US each month when near
ing her resurrection.
We were going along, side by side, Karl /
and /, our backs bent, our hands in our
pockets a,ld our guns under our arms As /
we had drawn wooden stockings over our
shoes to enable us TO walk on the frozen river
without slipping, we travelled along noise
lessly, / watching the little white clouds
made 10y the breath of the dogs. We soon
,eached the edge of the morass and started
lown an alley of dried rushes cutting through
l. Il